My readers have to work with me to create the experience. They have to bring their imaginations to the story. No one sees a book in the same way, no one sees the characters the same way. As a reader you imagine them in your own mind. So, together, as author and reader, we have both created the story.
When I write, I picture the characters a certain way in my head, and they're not like any actor or actress. It's almost hard for me to let go of my ideas as to the way they look.
Reading is a creative activity. You have to visualize the characters, you have to hear what the voices sound like.
The fans reacted very positively to me being cast [The Mortal Instruments] which, as a Twilight or Harry Potter franchise, when you read a book and you have someone in your mind or you have a vision and then they're cast in real life, it can go either way. So I was very, very honored and happy that they were excited.
I imagine them very clearly and then attempt to describe what I can see. Sometimes I draw them for my own amusement! (talking about her characters and scenes)
I like looking at the characters. Seeing them always brings up some voice or attitude. I am much more visual, and that works so much better than having someone tell me what the character is all about.
I learned just recently, in fact, that a lot of people who read do not form a visual image from what they're reading. They just don't. They follow the events and get the resonance with the language, but they have only a vague, general idea of what the characters look like.
I don't tend to picture my characters as actors and actresses.
When I read books, I actually really love imagining whomever I want to in the character's role. I get such vivid pictures on my own that that is a big part of the experience for me.
The theater of the mind is impossible to compete with, and I like the idea that with a few suggestions, each reader forms in his or her own mind what a character or a place looks like.
I very seldom, very seldom, even know what my characters look like.
I think for anybody reading the book they're going to get an idea in their heads of all those characters, and I think that once that gets fixed, it's quite hard to shake.
You draw the character from all angles - side, profile, back, etc. so the animator has this character in all the ways it looks like.
When I was writing the script I thought he is this guy. I really hoped...I kept imagining him as that guy. And then he came in to audition and I was really nervous because I really wanted him to do Greek, you know? And he...I didn't know who else I could cast. And he was amazing in the audition. Really funny.
Doing a movie of one of the Raksura books would involve a lot of CGI, but I have thought about who I'd like to play the characters. Some of them I just can't pin down to a specific actor, and I keep revising my mental list.
I think when you're a fan of a book you do have your own little version of the characters and I hope that some people feel we are the versions they might have imagined.
This may sound strange, but although I feel like I know everything about my characters, the brand of shampoo they use, how many cavities they have, their greatest fear, I don't actually see their faces.
I can picture the character in my head, and the voice just comes out.
